When to use the Entity Framework

Question

Greetings!
I am studying entity framework and what I see are examples using the localDB database, my question is: With the course of my learning can I use this tool applied in other databases? Can the entity framework be used in large applications or just for learning issues?
Thank you all in advance, Reginaldo.

Answer 1

The localDB database is not a database system, it is a convenience for developers. It is essentially a developer's version of SQL Server. The term database is ambiguous; it can be used to refer to a specific collection of tables in a format unique to a database system or it can refer to a database system, such a SQL Server, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, DB2 and many others. I am not sure but I believe that localDB is actually SQL Server Express.

Let us look at Entity Framework documentation. From there we can find a large list of Supported Databases. And I believe there are others available not listed there. From that list we can see that at least SQL Server, MySQL, SQLite and DB2 are supported.

See SQL Server Downloads. You can download and install a developer edition of SQL Server. Based on my experience, it is not likely to be beneficial to you; the SQL Server Express provided with Visual Studio is integrated into VS and therefore more convenient to use.

A database developed as a localDB database can easily be converted to use some other edition of SQL Server, including Azure. EF can absolutely be used for production; it is very definitely designed for that purpose. EF is very worth learning and will save you much time in the future and could easily be a job requirement in the future.